According to the mainstream view in the philosophy of music, the only way to authentically perform works of past centuries is according to the ideal of Historically Authentic Performance (HAP). This paper aims to show that, despite recent defences of the mainstream view, it lacks motivation, and hence should be abandoned or revised. As we shall see, first, there is no plausible account of HAP as a final and intrinsic value consistent with the work-focused teleology of work-performance. Second, a plausible (...) account of the value of HAP in work-performance regards HAP as a way of performing works of past centuries convincingly. However, this approach does not support the mainstream view because this only leaves HAP as an interpretive option. Finally, an alternative defence of the value of HAP in the form of an indispensability argument is considered: HAP is indispensable to accurately comply with a work’s score, and thus to perform it faithfully. This strategy supports the demands of the mainstream view, but we will see that, if we take this option seriously, HAP must be understood in a substantively different manner than the mainstream view does, such that it ultimately amounts to the second option analysed above. (shrink)

Nemesio G. C. Puy argues that the "nested types" ontology of works of Western classical music can solve recent disagreements about such works' authentic performance. I raise several objections to his argument.

_Winner of the Fabian Dorsch ESA Essay Prize._ Julian Dodd defends the view that, in musical work-performance practice, interpretive authenticity is a more fundamental value than score compliance authenticity. According to him, compliance with a work’s score can be sacrificed in cases where it conflicts with interpretative authenticity. Stephen Davies and Andrew Kania reject this view, arguing that, if a performer intentionally departs from a work’s score, she is not properly instantiating that work and hence not producing an authentic performance (...) of it. I argue that this objection fails. A detailed analysis of work-performance practice reveals, first, that the normative scope of interpretive authenticity encompasses the practice of composing musical versions and that, second, when performers sacrifice score compliance to maximize interpretive authenticity, they are performing the target work by means of performing a version of it. By means of the nested types theory, I then show how performances produced in this way can be properly formed instances, and hence authentic performances, of their target work. (shrink)